


plant new seeds in the melody

by Mia_Zeklos



Series: Reylo Week 2020 [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Butterflies, F/M, Smuggler Ben Solo, as in it's still the GFFA but many years after the time when canon takes place, barely touched upon but he does have the aesthetic for it so, because apparently everyone has to have a go at this, this is just extremely cheesy and romcom-y sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23936173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: What Rey wants most of all is to give the best wedding present she possibly can. It's a classic, after all, releasing butterflies at the end of the ceremony, despite all the obstacles that claim otherwise. As it turns out, all she needs is the helpful hand of a certain smuggler.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reylo Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721188
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30
Collections: REYLO WEEK 2020, Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	plant new seeds in the melody

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day four of the reylo week - Canon Divergence/Fusion or Crossover/Modern and _also_ for a prompt on twitter that would not let me rest. Far fluffier and lighter than I usually go with this ship, but it felt refreshing to go in that direction for once. Title from [here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUUElxEGo0U)
> 
> Hope you enjoy it and, as always, feedback is most welcome!

It had all started, as things frequently do, with Poe and the fact that _he knows a guy_.

Rey would have never agreed to any of this if she’d had a choice – and she _would_ have had a choice if Rose had picked a wedding venue on a planet where the entertainment she wants for the wedding in question is actually _legal_. As it is, Accorth had forbidden any and all restrictions that people could impose on its native fauna and Rey had watched with increasing panic as her choices of the perfect gift had dwindled to a handful of off-world destinations with little to no prospects of success.

Hence, Poe and his guy.

It’s strange; whatever it is that she’s got with him. They’re not precisely friends, but he’s close to Finn who is, in turn, close to Rey, and they’d been forced into the same places too many times over the last few years for her not to trust him. Usually, it would have been a matter of habit and not something for her to agonise over right before reaching her destination, but this time, it’s just a _bit_ too much.

 _It’s a reserve of some kind,_ he’d waved her off when she’d asked for more details on his supposed source of not precisely government-approved presents _. Ask for Kylo Ren; he’ll help you out. And while you’re at it_ , he’d added, as if suddenly remembering that he’d wanted to ask a favour of her in return for the information he’d given her, _tell him that I know he’s seen Zorii Bliss recently, and that she knows she needs to talk to me if she wants a response_.

He’d made very little sense and Rey is still halfway sure that neither of the names he’d told her belong to real people, but it’s worth a try. She’s rather desperate to get this done in time, by now, and if there’s an actual man somewhere in the galaxy – named Kylo Ren – who can smuggle her butterflies for her best friend’s wedding on a world that doesn’t allow the practice, then she’s ready to take her chances. She’s not sure what to expect from a butterfly reserve, but once she’s inside, surrounded by the likely artificial greenery from all sides, she can almost understand why someone would try and use it as a front for any kind of criminal activity. It’s so serene, so calming, even with the rowdy group of kids currently turning at the nearest corner. It’s a whole class of them, led by a human woman far too regular-looking to possibly go by any of the aliases that Poe had given her and so, with a tentative smile, Rey shoulders right past her and sinks into the depths of the establishment.

There’s no way the city outside could hide a forest like this packed in here. The trees are tall enough that she can barely see the tops from where she’s standing and the radiant sunshine beaming down at her is nothing like the – currently, less than excellent – weather outside the reserve’s doors. Still, as she approaches the line of doors that must hold the staff area, Rey feels ridiculously in sync with it all. All her worries, both about the wedding and a million other things that plague her on a daily basis, evaporate in her oversaturated surroundings, and it’s only when she gets to the door that says ‘Director’ that she remembers what she’s here for.

Right. The butterflies. _Her_ butterflies, not the ones covering every bit of space around her. Poe hadn’t been particularly wordy in his directions, so it’s up to her to handle this. She feels utterly ridiculous, but it’s for the greater good, and if it turns out that this has all been an elaborate plan, she would just have to sacrifice Poe for the greater good, too. Finn would understand, surely, and Rose would defend her if it means getting her butterflies in time.

“Come in,” a voice calls from the inside. It’s deep and just rough enough for it to sound like she’d woke him up, but Rey pushes the door open anyway, tentatively slipping into the director’s office before she can think better of it.

“Hello.” If he’d sounded dazed, it’s nothing compared to how much he _looks_ it. His dark hair is dishevelled, his eyes blinking rapidly as if he’s trying to keep her from slipping out of focus, and the comlink tossed onto the desk is imprinted into his face where he’d clearly fallen asleep on top of it. There’s a butterfly on his shoulder and something about the sight makes her, oddly, feel a little more emboldened about her mission here. There’s a plaque on the desk with the name _Ben Solo_ engraved into it and she wonders, for a fleeting moment, if having a ridiculous pseudonym is a condition for anyone who’d like to try their luck in a position in this place. “How can I help you?”

“I’m—I’m looking for an employee of yours.” Stars, it comes out as directionless as she feels. “A friend of mine asked after him. A man called Kylo Ren?”

It sounds about as stupid as she’d assumed it would, but Ben Solo surges up in his seat, suddenly wide awake. “And who would that friend be?”

“Poe. Poe Dameron? He said I could ask for a favour.”

He seems to relax at the name. “Well, look no further. What kind of favour did he offer?”

“He said that you could get me butterflies.”

The director – _Kylo Ren_ , apparently, though why a man with a name like his would need to make up a fake one is beyond her – pauses, confused. “I think you might be looking for Ben Solo after all.”

“ _No_.” Rey’s eyes dart towards the door. He _owns_ the place, but there must be a reason he’s only doing this on the down low. “I need you to _sell_ them to me, for a wedding. My best friend is getting married and it’s all part of her perfect vision, but they just had to pick a planet where caging animals is forbidden, and—” She doesn’t really want to admit it, but, “And I’m getting desperate. Poe said that you could help.”

“Ah.” It’s impossible to interpret what he’s thinking, but he’s not laughing at her, at least. Rey’s only vaguely aware of the kind of things Poe does when no one is looking, but she doubts that someone who’s clearly even deeper into whatever it is – deep enough to need a pseudonym – gets asked to smuggle butterflies into a wedding often. “I’m not partial to cages myself, to tell you the truth. It’s one of the reasons I chose this place. I _can_ arrange it,” he adds when she nods, resigned. If he’s that easily baited into wanting to prove his abilities, then he’s going to be easier to work with than she’d suspected and Rey lets herself smile back in response to the slow, appraising curl of his lips. His eyes are dark and inviting and, when he gets up from his chair to push the door behind her open once again, she follows him readily. “Why don’t you take a look around?”

~.~

The butterflies _love_ him.

Rey’s not really sure what it’s all about – from what she’d heard, insects tend to be attracted by anything that could resemble a flower, and Ben Solo is farther from that than anyone she’s ever seen; a dark stain in the middle of the sparkling, vibrant forest around them. Even so, he handles them with far too much ease for someone who looks the way he does and she only realises that not one had landed on her since they’d gone out when he tries to pass one of the blue bugs onto her and it refuses to budge.

“They’re my favourites,” he explains, though she can’t really see the difference – they’re all in colours so bright that they make her eyes water. “I remember seeing some of them as a child, in a world that hadn’t made hunting them illegal just yet. They’d be perfect for what you want, see,” he nudges the butterfly away and Rey watches, a little awed, as its wings rain crystals all over the sleeves of his dark tunic. “Your friend would like that, I bet.”

“She would.” It would be _beautiful_ – even without Rose’s frequent descriptions of what the venue is going to look like, Rey can imagine it in great detail already. It still won’t come to her, but she supposes he’ll find a way to fix that, provided that anyone could train them to begin with. “Thank you, Ben.”

It’s a bit too familiar and she’d already forgotten about the name she’d found him by and all the implications that go with it, but he doesn’t seem to mind – if anything, the half-smile from before blossoms further, his entire face lighting up with it. “It’s no trouble. I’ll keep in touch.”

“Please do.” She’s on this planet for a limited time only and, for the first time since the preparations for the wedding had started, she finds that she’s not quite so eager to leave once they’re done anymore.

She only remembers about upholding her part of the deal with Poe much later.

~.~

The forest in the middle of the capital city becomes one of her favourite places to be after that.

There’s something about it that she can’t put into words – there’s the calm from before, an oasis in the endless sensory overload of her existence, but it’s more than that. Even when Ben isn’t there (which is a frequent occurrence, from what she’s gathered, and can’t help but think that he’s somewhere out there doing whatever he does when he’s being Kylo Ren), it’s a dangerously addictive place to be and it gives her just enough peace for her to nearly jump out of her skin when the man in question taps her shoulder.

“You came back.”

“Of course I did. You owe me a swarm of butterflies.” A swarm she’s yet to pay for, but then again, he’d never named a price. “There was something I forgot to tell you when we first spoke. Poe wanted you to get him in touch with someone else you work with – Zorii Bliss.”

He scoffs as he settles down on the forest floor right next to her. “He’ll have to pull a lot more strings than using me as a buffer if he wants her to come near him after what he did the last time.”

“I’m afraid to ask.” Her voice is light, but the expression he suddenly wears is not.

“You shouldn’t be.” Despite the tension she can see seeping into his every muscle, he doesn’t sound particularly bothered. “Smuggling’s a business like any other, no matter the goods. And I’ve got it all,” he adds with the usual amount of improbable confidence before she’d even got the chance to ask. That half-smile is back, chasing the clouds away from his face and yet another one of the reserve’s inhabitants flutters over to him, landing in his expectant palm. “Your request was just a lucky coincidence. I couldn’t believe it when you walked into my office and said _that_ name, only to ask for wedding decoration.”

The strange sort of familiarity that had developed between them is enough to keep her from feeling particularly offended, but Rey still scowls when she reaches out towards his offered hand and the butterfly pointedly ignores her, as they had all done over the past few weeks. “Your pets still don’t like me.”

Ben plops back onto the grass, eyes narrowing against the rays of sunlight passing through the trees high up above. “They’re not my pets. And I don’t think they hate you.” He turns towards her when Rey follows his example and lies down on the ground next to him, and there’s something so unbearably honest about the way he’s looking at her that she feels, strangely, a little like crying. She’d never met someone quite so brutally open before. She doesn’t think it’ll ever happen again. “They’re just waiting.”

It’s been weeks, nothing more, and she’s already unsure how she’s going to leave this place once Finn and Rose finally tie the knot. She’d hated it when they’d first arrived – despite the awe-inspiring skyline that they’d wanted it for, this world is too noisy, too packed, nothing like the timelessness of her homeworld and although anything is better than Jakku, she’s still not particularly accustomed to the life that the city offers – but it had taken so little for her mind to change that it’s nearly laughable. “For what?”

Ben evades her gaze yet again, staring up into the sky instead as he, for the first time, deigns to answer this kind of challenge. “For you to choose them first.”

~.~

By the time the wedding comes around, Rey has familiarised herself with the venue enough to know every inch of it. She’d left Rose to fuss over the last miniscule details an hour or so ago and had instead wandered off to see if her surprise had been properly attended to. Ben had been adamant about his ‘no cages’ rule and she’d spent days trying to drag the plan out of him, only to finally concede that it wouldn’t be too bad if she ended up surprised too. He’s not much of a party planner, but he _does_ know his protégées and, as she’d soon found out, there’s little that he _can’t_ do.

He’d buckled and told her the majority of what she’d wanted to know about his business on the side, eventually. It had only happened after she’d admitted to hearing the stories about Han Solo and connecting the very likely dots between them, and he’d been rather forlorn about it – as the son of a smuggler-turned-general and a princess, it’d have been difficult to follow in his father’s footsteps like he’d wanted to. Rey had been appropriately sympathetic, all the while trying to bite back the smile that had threatened to give her irrational amusement away – of all the things to pick as a front to his wildly varied services in stealing and reselling the galaxy’s treasures, a _butterfly reserve_ would have been the last on her list, but he’d done an excellent job out of it. Now, as she sneaks through the back entrance of where the happy couple would eventually say their vows, it’s impossible not to admit that much – the small bugs seem to be trapped in every niche and corner; hundreds of them in all the colours she’d single-handedly picked. Around each and every one, there’s a barely-visible force-field holding them in place and she can’t help but wonder how he’d managed it.

“You know what they say about magicians and their secrets.” It’s meant to tease her, but there’s a strange glint in his eyes; the usual mischief mixed with expectation, as if he’s measuring her reaction before he admits to anything else. “It’s a trick I learnt from my mother when I was a child.”

“Your family knows some unusual tricks.”

“It’s an unusual family.”

A long time ago – hundreds of years before their time, when the galaxy had still been young – chosen few had used a power akin to magic for this kind of thing, or so the legends tell. Rey had spent all her life trying to be too rational for such traitorous thoughts to still plague her and she knows, really, that it must be a piece of technology controlling all this that he’s hiding to keep the mystery alive, but she can’t help but wonder. Ben has that effect on her, she’s found – she keeps asking questions that she wouldn’t have dared to before only because he keeps encouraging it.

It’s only fair that it works the other way around on occasion.

“Do you see now? Why they do what they do?”

He’s so close. They should be outside already, or at least do _something_ to prepare for the arrival of the soon-to-be newlyweds, but when Ben releases his hold on the butterflies with a flick of his wrist and one of them promptly lands on her palm just as she reaches up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear and lights them both up with the shimmer of the jewels that its wings produce, she can’t bring herself to move.

“I do.”

All she’d had to do was meet him halfway.


End file.
